Top four OHL contenders

Now that the Ontario Hockey League trade deadline has passed — it was a frenzied, frantic process — the 2026 segment of the regular season schedule is in resumption with rosters set for the stretch run. And from among a host of contenders for this year’s OHL championship there are four teams that stand out more than the others, at least to us.

Three of the teams that we particularly like are from the Western Conference — Windsor Spitfires, Soo Greyhounds and Flint Firebirds. (We are not enthusiastically sold on the Kitchener Rangers even with the addition of Team Canada forward Sam O’Reilly by way of trade with the London Knights.) Meanwhile, our lone Eastern Conference choice is the Brantford Bulldogs, with reasonable respect to both the Ottawa 67’s and Barrie Colts.

Brantford Bulldogs. It is easy to absolutely love Brantford’s forward formation of recently acquired Charlie Paquette and Gabriel Frasca teamed up with National Hockey League first rounders Jett Luchanko, Jake O’Brien and Marek Vanacker along with presumptive 2026 NHL first rounder Caleb Malhotra and the high end likes of Adam Benak, Cooper Dennis, Luca Testa, Nik Rossetto and Jeremy Freeman. Then there is a defense core of NHL first rounders Ben Danford and Adam Jiricek along with Zack Sandhu, Owen Protz, Vladimir Dravecky, Edison Engle and Cam Hankai. And the Bulldogs also boast a dandy 1-2 net duo of Ryerson Leenders and David Egorov.

First year general manager Spencer Hyman has performed like anything but a rookie OHL GM with several key additions made throughout the season and up to the recent trade deadline. Hyman relayed to Hockey News North/Hockey News Windsor that he feels as though “we did everything we possibly could to make our team better to take a serious run at a championship this year. We acquired what we set out to acquire. We wanted to leave no doubt. We have a team that come playoff time, can win a Game 7 if need be.”

Meanwhile, the Bulldogs are very, very well led back of the bench by OHL championship coach Jay McKee, who is likely ticketed for a pro job at some point. And to be sure, McKee has the assets to at least deliver an Eastern Conference title to Brantford.

Windsor Spitfires. A favourite to win this year’s OHL title before the season even started, the Spitfires were further strengthened at the trade deadline by a pair of exceptional trades made by general manager Billy Bowler. Bowler did not tip his hand until a few days before the deadline and then added sand paper skater Nathan Villeneuve and overage Alex Pharand from the Sudbury Wolves to Windsor’s front line and picked up multi faceted Team Czechia defender Jakub Fibigr from the Brampton Steelheads.

Up front — and already in place before the acquisitions of Villeneuve and Pharand — were NHL first round forwards Liam Greentree and Jack Nesbitt, presumptive 2026 NHL first rounder Ethan Belchetz, along with the likes of A.J. Spellacy, Cole Davis, Ethan Garden and blossoming rookies Johnny McLaughlin and Beksultan Makysh.

To her sure, there are no holes in the Windsor lineup.

The Spitfires have an air tight defense led by older defenders that include overage Wyatt Kennedy and a foursome of 2006 birth year blue liners — Carson Woodall, Anthony Cristoforo, Conor Walton and the aforementioned Jakub Fibigr.

Between the pipes, Windsor can continue to win with overage sensation Joey Costanzo, who is one of the top three or four goalies in the entire league.

And back of the bench, after Dale Hunter of the London Knights, Spitfires head coach Greg Walters takes a back seat to no one.

All in all, aforementioned Spitfires GM Billy Bowler liked what he had before the trade deadline — and likes his team even more now.

“This group got us where we are and, by adding a few pieces, we feel that we are better. Over the last couple of years, we have been trying to put a good product out there that can compete and I think we’ve done that,” stated Bowler.

Soo Greyhounds. General manager Kyle Raftis has pieced together a team that is right up there with Windsor in terms of coming out of the Western Conference and making it to the OHL finals. Now it is up to head coach John Dean to at least get through two rounds of the playoffs.

Since the start of this season, Raftis has made what was already a good team an even better one by first adding forward Colin Fitzgerald, then defenseman Lukas Fischer, then Team Canada bronze medal winning goalie Carter George via the trade route. The deadline acquisition of George from the Owen Sound Attack was the piece de resistance for Raftis.

Simply put, if Dean as the head coach cannot get this Hounds team into the Western Conference finals, then he should not be back next season. These Hounds are loaded.

Besides the recent return of overage forward Justin Cloutier and the key trade additions since the start of the season, the Hounds are a haven of high end talent led by superlative Team Canada forward and NHL first rounder Brady Martin, NHL draft picks Marco Mignosa and Jordan Charron and Team USA defenseman Chase Reid, who is projected as a top five pick at this year’s NHL Draft.

Flint Firebirds. This is the sleeper team of the Western world.

Step by step, move by move, low key Firebirds general manager Dave McParlan has positioned Flint to be on pace with Windsor and the Soo as declared contenders to feasibly make it to the OHL championship round this spring.

Over time, trades and free agent signings finalized by McParlan have delivered ace goalie Mason Vaccari, defensemen Urban Podrekar and forwards Chris Thibodeau, Alex Kostov, Kevin He and Jacob Battaglia.

Mix them in with NHL draft pick forwards Nathan Aspinall and Jimmy Lombardi and pro style defensemen Rylan Fellinger, Dryden Allen and Darels Uljanskis and the Firebirds, led by third year head coach Paul Flache, figure to be a tough out — or quite possibly an in — come the playoffs.